


You Forgot About the Spiders

by humblepirate



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Domestic, Drabble, No Smut, Number Eight AU, Sibling Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-17 00:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humblepirate/pseuds/humblepirate
Summary: It's been thirteen years since you left the Umbrella Academy. Now, on a chilly and otherwise normal spring day, your family has decided to insert themselves back into your life.





	You Forgot About the Spiders

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short little oneshot thing that's been bouncing around my head for a while. I don't normally like Number Eight AUs but this came into my mind while I was bored at work and I used it to distract myself from the monotony of the job and then it became this! I don't think I'll be doing anything more with this story, it was really more an exercise in writing and characterization. I hope you enjoy!

It’s one of those cloudy March days where the shroud of winter still clings to the skeletons of old brick buildings and the wan sunlight puddles on the vacant sidewalks between swaths of shadow. The cutting breeze drives pedestrians indoors and the few lingering vehicles faster toward their destinations. Not for the first time, you curse the city’s lack of affordable cabs and your own reluctance to use the subway. (You were born above the ground and you intend to die above the ground, thank you very much.)

Grocery bags bang against your legs as you walk. You hike your bag up your shoulder before it can slip down and add to the burden in your hands. As soon as you become a millionaire, you swear, you’re buying a car. You’ll never walk in this city again.

The lobby of your apartment building isn’t much better than outside. You silently wish you’d had the foresight to apply for a first-floor apartment as you trudge up the teetering staircase. You have to set some of the groceries down in order to reach into your bag for your keys, and as you bend down to do so your eyes flick automatically to the doorframe.

There’s a piece of Scotch tape bridging the door and the frame, invisible to anyone who isn’t looking closely. A precaution, nothing unusual for someone living in this part of the city. It’s still intact, as you’d expected.

You unlock the door and shoulder it open with some difficulty. Your arms scream in protest when you try to lift your groceries onto the kitchen counter, so you settle for the floor. You kick your shoes off and lean against the counter with a low sigh, pausing to allow your muscles a reprieve after your painful trek.

There is a window looking out upon an alley directly across from your front door. It’s the tallest window in the apartment and the chief selling point when you were looking for housing. The blackened iron of the fire escape clings like a scab to the side of the building. In summer you like to sit out there with a good book and some fairy lights, but you haven’t done so in months, not since the winter chill set in.

The window doesn’t lock. Fire risk. The alley sits a treacherous twenty or so feet below your fire escape; no worry of thieves here, unless they can stack themselves high enough to unroll the ladder. Even then, you have… other security measures.

In the interim months since the first frost, you’ve received the occasional eight-legged visitor. You’re content to allow them temporary residence so long as they stay out of your way. One of them has stretched its home across the window’s lower pane like a thin, nearly invisible tightrope, glimmering faintly against the glow of the sun. Normally, at least.

You slough off your jacket and cross the pitted wooden floor to examine the window. The edges of the pane are still laced with the final ghosts of frost. You swipe your hand across the glass and it comes away clean.

Your bedroom has no door, instead separated from the main apartment area by a thick embroidered curtain. You chose to turn the space into your bedroom primarily because the only window is high and narrow, not accessible from the street and barely large enough for the average-sized adult. Besides the bed clothed only in a gray sheet and comforter and a dresser cluttered with papers, the room is bare. Few places to hide.

You collapse on your bed and let out a long sigh. You’re tired, your feet hurt, and you really hadn’t planned on a family reunion today, but here you are.

“What do you want, Diego?” you groan.

There’s a flicker of motion in your closet that no one who hadn’t spent the entirety of their childhood in severe proximity to him could notice, then Diego is leaning against the wall with a look of vague amusement.

“What gave me away?”

“I figured you wouldn’t be dumb enough to use the door. I was right, though jury’s still out re: your intelligence. You didn’t even touch the dust on the windowsill- impressive.” You hold up your empty hand. “But you forgot about the spiders.”

“The spiders?”

“The web. You broke it.” Your hand drops back to the bed. “You owe that spider a new home.”

“Tell it to send me an invoice.” He peels off the wall and drops onto your bed, more comfortable now that he’s been discovered. “Nice place. Very private.”

“Gee, it’s almost like that was intentional.”

He lets out a dry huff of a laugh. “I know you wouldn’t move back to the city if you didn’t want a visit from your favorite big brother.”

“We’re literally the exact same age,” you reply, kicking him in the side.

He easily blocks your attack and pushes your foot away. “Details, details.” He pulls a knife from his harness and starts tossing it up in the air and catching it, a subconscious habit he’s had since childhood.

You stare very hard at the ceiling with the hope that if you think it loudly enough, you’ll be able to wish him out of your life again. You glance back down. Nope, still there. What you wouldn’t give for Allison’s power right now.

“So,” you say, shifting into a sitting position, “what did I do to warrant this unwelcome surprise?”

“Don’t act like you’re not happy to see this handsome face,” he says with a cheesy wink. 

You erase his dumb smirk with a pillow aimed directly at his face. The pillow freezes right before impact, and when it drops onto your bed, there’s a significant tear in the fabric. He tucks the dagger back into its sheath with a disappointed head shake.

“Now you owe me a pillow,” you grumble.

“Put it on my tab.” He stands, brushes off his stupid leather pants, and reaches out a hand. “Get up, sunshine. Time to go.”

“Hah. You’re funny.” You flop back down and roll over, burying your face in the mattress. Maybe you should try wishing him away again.

Diego sighs. “Welp, I tried to do it the easy way. Five?”

Something strange twists your stomach. You lift your head and the flash of blue light strikes like something familiar, like the first frame of an old home video, and then you’re staring at your brother. Your  _ little _ brother, who is technically the same age as you, but looks like he just stepped back into reality from the day he disappeared seventeen years ago. Right down to the fucking Academy uniform. It’s understandable, then, that your usual snark is smothered beneath the gob-smacking astonishment that rushes through you.

“Close your mouth. You look like an idiot.”

Even through the haze of disbelief, you purposefully keep your mouth open for a few more seconds just to spite him. You try to gather yourself enough to form an intelligent response, but your tongue feels clumsy and your brain fumbles to pull together a coherent sentence.

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m back. Yes, I’m okay. Yes, I will tell you more later. But right now we have to  _ go _ ,” he says.

Just as warm and fuzzy as ever.

You roll off your bed, push past your brothers, and shrug aside the curtain to the rest of the apartment. Their footsteps follow you uncertainly as you head to the kitchen and crouch down to rifle in a cabinet.

A sudden  _ pop! _ and a burst of blue light herald Five’s appearance across the counter from you. That’s definitely not something you’d missed.

“What are you doing?”

You finally locate what you’d been digging for. You jump back up and set the dusty whiskey bottle and a glass onto your counter with a harsh  _ clink _ . You fill the glass halfway before tossing it back. It burns like gasoline and rubbing alcohol, flashes bright cinnamon clarity over your brain before settling back into a warm, pleasant buzz.

“I see you haven’t changed much,” Diego says drily. You give him the finger with one hand while the other tips it over for a refill. Before the amber liquid has time to hit the bottom of the glass, however, Five zaps to your side of the counter and snatches the bottle from your hand.

It is viscerally disconcerting to watch a thirteen-year-old in a private school uniform throw back a bottle of whiskey as big as his own head, and it is even stranger when that person is your brother who’s been missing since you were thirteen.

He finishes drinking and offers the bottle to you.

“Where we’re going next, you’re going to need it,” he croaks.

Oh, no. No, he is  _ not _ suggesting what you think he is. Moving back to the city is one thing, but you’d sworn on your father’s grave that you’d never step back into that godforsaken mansion ever again. Your eyes flicker to Diego, who’s wearing the expression of a resigned babysitter.

He shrugs. “Put it on my tab.”


End file.
